Economic Indicators

Exchange rate fluctuations influence economic activity not only via the standard trade channel, but also through a financial channel, which operates through the impact of exchange rate fluctuations on borrowers’ balance sheets and lenders’ risk-taking capacity. The paper explores the “triangular” relationship between (i) the strength of the US dollar, (ii) cross-border bank flows and (iii) real investment.

Despite being a tedious and time consuming task and even if you feel you’ve done all your homework, the pick could still go bad. In this article we’ll show you some harbingers of a turnaround situation in Obsidian Energy that will help you isolate the flower from the weeds.

Ben Graham, the father of value investing, once said of the stock market, “In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run it is a weighing machine.” To Graham the market was like a popularity contest. Investors “vote” for a stock out of considered enthusiasm for its prospects. Results however are determined in the long run as profits are “weighed” year after year and intrinsic value is revealed.

The growth trend has been declining in many mature economies not just since the crisis, but for several decades. This slowdown in growth has led to lower long-term interest rates. The structural causes of this trend of slowing growth is a subject of controversy among specialists. Demographic and technological developments are mentioned, as are the effects of the financial cycle, which may be out of sync with the business cycles. I do not want to pre-empt this ongoing discussion. Instead, I would like to focus on two issues, which in the current context are very relevant from a monetary policy perspective – regardless of the structural causes underlying the weak economic growth.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a report in which it increased its forecast for China’s GDP growth by 0.3 percentage points to 6.5 percent. However, the IMF report also warned that “slow progress in addressing corporate debt” posed a risk to the forecast. China’s claims to be over the worst of its corporate debt problem seem to be wishful thinking. One thing is certain: The debt problem is real; it’s a drag on growth; and policies so far have not gotten rid of it.

We want to fill a gap here. A lot of economic data is published day in and day out but yet most of us don’t really understand the lingo behind it. Let’s bring some clarity into this. Regularly we come across certain terms dealing with measures of economic activity. Most of them are pretty straight forward if you give it a chance.

Why is the employment situation report an important economic indicator and how do we interpret the report to get clues on the strength of the Economy. Its important to look at the different parts of the report and anlyze the different key data points to get an insight into how specific industries are perfoming.